Lure of the Wicked (3 page)

“The program should be in your suite.” He’d make a note to check with housekeeping. “This atrium connects all three towers.” As if she’d read his mind, her gaze flicked to the third set of doors. Answering her unspoken question, he added, “That’s the family quarters. As much as I’d love to show you my parlor—”

“Got it, slick,” she said, her lips twitching. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And that’s it.” It was the shortest, most precise tour he’d ever given.

Not that she cared, he realized wryly. The smile she flashed him was distracted. “Great,” she said, dismissal once again clear in her tone. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” He stepped out of her path, easing down the few steps separating the surrounding walkway from the central garden. “Welcome to Timeless, Naomi.”

The next few weeks were going to be woefully long with this particular heiress around. Phin let out his breath in a silent sigh of relief as she turned away. “Good night, then,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll meet again soon.”

“Do you need anything right away?”

Naomi flung a hand to the side without turning. “No. You’re an interesting man, Phinneas Clarke.”

He grinned at her back. “Phin, and if that’s not a compliment, I’d like to take it as one.”

Her shoulders lifted. “Take it however you—” she began, then froze as a muffled, ragged scream echoed through the courtyard.

Chapter Two

S
he didn’t wait to see what the so-polished Phin Clarke would do. She didn’t even consider what an equally polished heiress should do. As the first cry reverberated through the dimly lit courtyard, Naomi whirled and sprinted toward the pool hall.

Somewhat to his credit, Phin was barely a second behind her.

He’d labeled this the pool hall. She didn’t know what to expect as she barreled through a second set of doors. Water, obviously, maybe a splashing swimmer in distress. She didn’t like to swim, but she steeled herself to dive into whatever body of water she had to.

The screams shifted into panicked screeching that echoed eerily in the vast space. A quick glance took in a truly massive pool area. Two full-sized swimming pools and eight different bathing pools filled every available floor space, each rimmed with gold-veined white marble. Some bubbled, some boasted waterfalls, some steamed in welcoming heat. Along the walls inlaid with what looked like imported bamboo, doors vanished into mysterious interiors.

She homed in on a mid-twenties blond in a bright pink bikini hammering on one of the doors, screaming incoherently.

Naomi ran across the stylish slate flooring, the water-slick stone precarious as hell in her heeled boots. Phin broke off behind her, slammed a hand on an intercom she hadn’t seen by the door. She didn’t stop to check what he said. She slipped twice, managed to right herself before she tumbled ass over elbows into treated water.

With a sick feeling of dread building in her stomach and adrenaline boiling through her blood, Naomi caught herself on the door frame of the sauna beside the hysterical girl and pushed her out of the way. She slammed her hands around her eyes as she pressed her face to the hot pane of glass set into the door.

Beside her, the blond grabbed fistfuls of her wet hair in rigid, petrified fingers. “Oh, God, hurry,” she pleaded. “She’s not moving!”

Steam rolled thick and white through the sealed room, too dense to see a damn thing. Dread unfurled into cold certainty. “How long has she been in there?” Naomi asked.

“I don’t know!”

Naomi grabbed the door handle, jerked on it with all of her might. It didn’t budge. “Where are the locks?” she demanded.

“It’s mechanical.” Phin’s voice was grim behind her. “Maintenance is on the way.”

Naomi pushed away from the door, checked the gauges placed discreetly around a shiny gold panel. They vibrated in the red.

The blond threw herself at the door. “Grandma!”

“Cally!” Phin’s voice boomed across the pool, echoed in distinct, modulated authority. Calm, even despite the volume. Despite his pallor. “Barbara, I want you to go with Cally.”

“But—”

“We’ll get your grandmother out, all right? You need to go over there where it’s safe.” He took the blond by the arm, turned her forcefully, gently, toward the small crowd of guests and staff gathering at the end of the room. “It’ll be okay, just go with Cally.”

A trim redhead in the Timeless green uniform hurried to collect her, wrapping an arm around the blond’s shoulders. “Come with me,” she said in low, soothing tones. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Naomi didn’t know if that meant help had been called. It didn’t matter. Another few minutes and anyone in that locked-up sauna would be ready for a side serving of butter.

What the fuck was going on in this spa?

“Give me your jacket,” Naomi ordered swiftly.

“What—”

“Give me your goddamn jacket!”

Phin stripped off his tailored coat. She took it, shook it out, and wrapped it tightly around her right arm.

This was going to hurt like a bitch.

Shouldering him aside, ignoring his startled protest, she pressed her back against the door and turned her face away.

Pain was the least of her problems.

In one brutal slam of her padded elbow, the windowpane fractured. Air hissed wildly. A crack split all the way past her ear, sent aching shockwaves clear to her shoulder.

It wasn’t enough.

Steam whistled from the sudden vent, blisteringly hot. Holding her breath, the trapped steam sizzling by her cheek, she brought her arm up and slammed her elbow harder into the glass. Fractures split, segmented up the pane.

Another crash, and pressure shattered the rest. Shards exploded outward in a glittering storm, tinkled to the treated floor like diamonds. The crowd jumped, screamed.

Naomi ignored them, coughing as she batted at the air in front of her face. With a fierce surge of adrenaline hammering through her blood, she grabbed an edge of the window.

Phin caught her arm. “Naomi, don’t—”

She flicked him a glance, noted the hard edge to his mouth. Shaking her head once, she rolled her shoulder, disengaging as easily as if he’d never touched her, and leveraged herself up and through the narrow break. One spiky heel caught on the windowpane, wrenched her ankle, and she pitched to the floor on a stream of choked curses.

She couldn’t breathe. Hot, thick air slammed into her like a fist. She was drowning in a hot blanket of steam, like breathing in lava. Coughing, she forced herself to her hands and knees and croaked, “Hello?”

Muffled voices trailed through the broken window, died in the stifling heat. She strained to hear through it, but only a faint, muffled rattle of pressure and machine filled the choking silence.

Fuck. Not good.

“If you can hear me, help is on the way!” She crawled forward, squinting in the roiling steam. It filled her lungs, strangled her as it soaked through her clothes in seconds flat. All but blind, she cursed as her foot snagged and sent her sprawling. Swore again as her hands found hot skin and wet spandex. Damp, stringy hair.

Relief flickered. “I found her!” she shouted.

But was she alive?

The light over the sealed door guttered. Electricity crackled, sparked a blue-white arc over the door and exploded in a shower of sparks.

The locks slammed open.

With a shudder of displaced pressure, the door swung wide and sweet, blessed cool air rolled in on Phin’s heels, battering her sweaty skin. Soaked to the bone with steam and sweat, Naomi sucked in the fresh oxygen as she struggled to maneuver the old woman to a sitting position. Her dead weight strained Naomi’s balance.

“Shit—”

“Easy.” Phin slid his arms under Naomi’s, heedless of the wet tracks her saturated sweater left on his designer shirt. His features set into harsh lines. “Let her go,” he ordered quietly. “I’ve got her.”

“She’s not breathing.” Naomi ignored his direction, rearranging her grip and curving her arms around the woman’s knees. “Grab her shoulders, keep her steady.”

“I can—”

“Just do it,” she snapped. His mouth closed, lips sealing into a thin, taut line, but he didn’t argue. Together they navigated through the door and out into the fresh, cool, richly oxygenated air.

“Here,” she gasped, sucking in as much air as she could. “Hurry.”

They knelt to set the sweat-soaked woman on the tile, and Naomi ignored Phin beside her, tuned out hysterical sobbing from somewhere in the small crowd, and bent over the woman’s head.

She was so thin. Fragile as hell in her one-piece bathing suit, her gaunt limbs sticking out of the obscene splash of color and too damn still. Her skin was cherry red. Naomi prodded at her thin throat. It took too long, but she found it.

A pulse.

Thank God.

The routine came as familiar as breathing. Naomi checked her throat, cleared it, and folded her hands over the woman’s chest. Four pumps, sharp, short bursts of pressure, and she covered the woman’s mouth with her own. She breathed hard, fighting back the spots flickering in her peripheral vision as her lungs protested.

Another breath. A third.

Four more pumps against her chest. “Come on,” she gritted out. “Three, four—come on!”

Before her second round of breath, the old woman gagged, coughing violently.

Phin wrapped an arm around the woman’s back, pulling her up to sit. She hacked and choked, gasped something unrecognizable, and over her head, Phin’s eyes locked on Naomi.

Stark, raw gratitude lingered there. Approval.

Much more appraisal than she needed.

Naomi sat back on her heels, scraping back her stringy hair, and deliberately looked away. She didn’t need his gratitude.

And she sure as hell didn’t want to answer the questions she saw behind that silent, raw acknowledgment.

She backed away, striving for indifference. For casual relief. Just a run-of-the-mill heiress doing her good deed for the day. Flushed and sticky with sweat, she stripped off her sweater, balled it into a sodden mass between her hands, and watched Phin take control with easy, deliberate authority.

Even with sweat drying on his face, with his pale gray dress shirt stained, wilted, and damp, they listened to him. As a gurney arrived and they carried the woman out on a stretcher, the small crowd nodded as Phin promised to investigate the accident. He assured them gravely that they would take every precaution and check every automated system in the resort. His expression was concerned. Everything about him was steady.

Blah, blah, and fucking blah. Naomi ignored the wide set of his shoulders and watched the crowd instead.

Four guests. Seven staff, some wearing the dusky green uniform that the witch had worn, and others in crisp black and white.

Were any of them in league with Joe Carson? With the unknown witch?

Or was this just the accident it looked like?

She pictured the shower of sparks above the door and licked at her lower lip thoughtfully. Her head pounded, a wicked echo of exertion and the knot aching at the back of her head. She’d give someone’s left nut for painkillers.

Instead she inhaled the pungent odor of hot chlorine and drying sweat and watched the group trickle out. There’d be talk tomorrow. Gossip.

Questions.

She rubbed the back of her neck and narrowed her eyes at the two women who remained behind, industriously cleaning up the mess of towels and broken glass. They wore identical light green dresses designed to accommodate the kind of work she imagined hotel staff had to do. Clean, laundry, fold shit. She didn’t know.

They looked upset. Worried. They looked at their boss often, as if gauging their own reaction to his. Waiting for him to reassure them, maybe.

He directed the dispersing crowd back to the double doors and Naomi watched them as they filed out, eerily silent in the wake of the nearly fatal accident. None looked like accessories to murder. But then accessories rarely did.

She stood cautiously, locking her unsteady knees before they dumped her right back onto her ass. Although she wasn’t cold in her clinging, wet camisole, goose bumps rippled over the bare skin of her arms.

Death by steam. Not a pleasant way to go.

She cleared her throat. “Has anyone called emergency services?”

Phin scraped a hand through his hair, forcing his damp curls to stand on end. “No.” The structured planes of his face were taut. Troubled. Inquisitive as he studied her.

She turned away. “I’ll call—”

“No,” he repeated. “They’ve taken her to the clinic. We have an excellent doctor and staff in house. She’s in the best hands possible. She’ll be fine.”

Naomi jerked her gaze back to his. Read steely resolve as it locked into place. Her eyebrows jerked upward. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. Our facility is state-of-the-art.”

“That woman almost died,” she pointed out. Low, even tones. “She needs an emergency room.”

“She’s being taken care of.” He actually meant it. Dumbfounded, she stared at him until he looked away, gaze sliding over her shoulder to fix on the open door with its yawning, broken window. “This was an unfortunate accident—”

“Fuck
you
,” she breathed. Spots flared like mini novas in front of her eyes, keeping time with the aching pulse in her skull. Suddenly shaking with rage, Naomi’s hands balled into fists at her side as Phin’s gaze slammed back to hers.

Narrowed. “I beg your pardon?” he said quietly.

Her lip curled. “You’re going to risk that woman’s safety because you can’t afford the bad press?”

He flinched, but one hand slashed through the air. “My hands are tied. Alexandra is an extremely private person.”

“I don’t care if—”

“She
chooses
,” he cut in with the same quiet, deliberate,
maddening
tone that made her want to deck him square in his too-pretty face, “and in fact insists on maintaining a level of privacy that does not include visits by emergency services.”

“That’s completely—”

“—what we’re contractually obligated to do,” he said, his tone as unyielding as the cloudy rose slate beneath his feet. “Now, you should have the clinic check out your arm.”

“My arm is fine,” she bit out. “That woman—”

“It’s your choice, Miss Ishikawa.”

Point made. She clicked her teeth together before she said something she was positive rich girls didn’t say in the company of polished men like Phinneas Clarke.

His expression remained hooded. Untouchable. “Since you refuse medical care, housekeeping will bring you a cold pack before it bruises. If you’ll excuse me.” He walked away without another word.

She swallowed every word welling up in her throat, beat down the fury and disgust.

Son of a bitch.
She just knew his mind was already going over whatever glib platitudes he intended to foist on everyone.

The man had a silver spoon jammed so far down his throat, it was no wonder his words came out with the same polished gleam. Phin Clarke was smooth.

But how smooth?

The witch in her suite. The old woman in the sauna. Did he know more than he let on?

No. The raw fear in his eyes as he’d maneuvered the unconscious woman out of the death trap of a sauna hadn’t been faked.

Had it?

Shit.

And then there was the uniformed witch in her suite.

“Fuck!” she snarled, ignoring the startled glances from the two women who cleaned up the remains of the glass she’d shattered.

Was Timeless harboring witches?